How to Monitor Your Employees’ Mobile

In Australia, an employer can track their employees’ cell phones using GPS. If you want to track a mobile your employee owns, you’ll need their permission. Before this, you also need to decide if you want to listen to their conversations or read their emails.

Buying Tracking Apps

You should research apps on the market for this purpose. There are a lot of companies that offer tracking solutions which may include TheOneSpy, FlexiSPY, mSpy, and TeleNav Track.

Once you have decided whether you want to record or listen in to your employees’ conversations or track their text messages and accordingly find an app that allows you to do all this monitoring.

You should also ask suggestions of other business owners what they use. Ask them if they use tracking software. This will help you know the product and customer service. You can research the products later.

Also ask, if the business owners have noticed an increase in their employees’ productivity with this tracking? You must know this information before installing a tracking app on your employees’ phones.

Now consider the following:

• How many phones can you install the application on?
• Other than GPS tracking, what other features are available on the app?
• Can you transfer the app from one device to another without paying an additional fee?

Compare apps. After finding many apps, do not forget to compare them so that you find exactly what you need at the best price.

Tracking Employees Legally

Know the law. However, it is legal to track your employees’ phone in Australia, do not forget to know the law in-depth – its restrictions. Just ensure there is a legitimate business need. These business needs may include:

• Ensuring employees are working
• Improving customer service
• Preventing harassment

Seek Employees’ Consent 

You can monitor your employees after taking their consent. It will consist of giving the employee notice that you plan to track the cell phones. This will become mandatory so long as the employee continues to work for you. It’s ideal to seek consent even if a business exception exists.

Add this monitoring requirement in your employment contract and include a flyer that they can keep with them.

Write a Privacy Policy 

You must decide who can access the tracking data to protect your employees. In case of your business being small, you do not need any such policy but larger companies should ascertain who can access the information and under what circumstances.

Mindfully explain that you will not access the data after work hours. By doing so, you might be violating your employee’s privacy.

Consult your Business Lawyer 

Your lawyer will help you know your legal liabilities and any wrinkles in the law. Seek the advice of your lawyer, explain why you want to track your employees’ smartphones. Also get the help of your lawyer in drafting your consent document and privacy policy.

Tracking Employee Conversations

As with tracking an employee’s physical location, you must not hack or access an employee’s cell phone to read their personal emails or listen in to their phone conversations. You should know your limit of monitoring the cell phones you provide your employees.

Know your State Law

States often offer employees more protection than the federal law. For this, you should research your state’s law about such laws. Consult with your lawyer and look online. Each state’s law is different.

Do not read private emails on private accounts. Computer hacking laws prevent people from logging into someone’s personal account using their password.

Don’t breach this law even when the employee is using your company phone. You are at risk if you do.

Do not Monitor Personal Calls 

When you start listening to a call, initially you might not know if it is a personal all. However, as soon as you come to know that the call is personal, federal law requires that you stop tracking it.

You can instruct your employees to use the phones strictly for work purposes to avoid tracking any personal calls.